Don't write much here. Don't watch much telly. So what's to say? We are the blog sensation that's sweeping the patio.
But I watched some gripping telly last night. Horizon on Intelligent Design, an ITV doc about Mossad's Revenge for the Munich Massacre and finally I caught the tail end of Rock School.
This was a programme I was prepared to hate from its description alone. Couldn't work, wouldn't work. Derivative idea and Gene Simmons is by definition an idiot. Who else but an Airfix kit of a fool could play heavy rock, and unimaginative heavy rock at that, while covered in black and white greasepaint, tongue flapping, yelling about rock and rolling all day and partying all night?
Oh boy, wrong there on every count. Loved it and especially loved Mr Simmons. Perhaps there was some deep affinity between what he was doing and what I have tried to do many times, namely try to explain to rock bands what they are supposed to be attempting to try to do, both musically and philosophically. He really really knew his stuff. The Rock School film was a parody in comparison, entertaining but tailored for ten year olds to understand and their parents to laugh at. This was the real wizard guru deal.
The essential problem is leading people to be free, to lash them on to liberty. Oh the circularity! And I thought he handled it beautifully, with the minimum of ego. I loved the part where the 'band' challenged him. "What do you know then?" That was the moment, the real rock and roll frontier fight. Here they were, finally questioning him, as he had been trying to get them to do all along. Would he like it? Would he recognise the straight forward irony in the question, the moment when the teaching and the leading stop? Conflicted he was. "I only have forty three gold records and thirty years of touring," he replied. I winced.
But next shot there he was fessing up. "I sank to the lowest there," he said quite modestly. I wonder about the feelings of mother birds as they hoik their fledgelings out of the nest. Will they miss them around the place? How do they know they are ready and able to fly? What if they are still just little birdy sized stones with a simple minded ability to drop in vertical lines? All these thoughts flashed through my mind like a Harrier jet through a pub. Red wine does that sort of thing to me these days.
So the little would-be rockers, in their frock coat/cassock uniforms defied one of the elemental forces of mid seventies US corporate rock, and sounded pretty weedy doing it. But they had gained strength, oh yes, the Jedi lesson was not lost on them; they were beginning to get the point. I loved the little ginger haired singer, wih the prisssy moral view and little puppy face. Lo and behold he was actually wearing a dog collar as part of his stage costume! Marvellous stuff. With his short cropped hair gelled vertically he looked awesomely like Vyvian from the Young Ones granted the facial pallor of our own dear Elizabeth the First.
They were set their quest and rite of adult passage, to play at Hammersmith Odeon, supporting Motorhead. Now that's more like it. Eat your heart out Hollywood. I encountered Lemmy several times. Not because I was in rarified circles but because he wasn't. In the eighties hw used to go regularly to Dingwalls or the Embassy Club or probably anywhere which had one armed bandits. I was once part of a secret cabaret mission nestled in the corner of what would now be called a chill out room in a club which had a gaming machine in the corner. We were doing mildly amplified standard jazz type songs. Lemmy was on the machine which regularly contribured to our performance.
Night and day yooo...
Boing Boing Bleep Bleep Rattle Rattle
I've got yooo...
Buzz Buzz Ching Clang Wurda Wurda etc.
A delegation was sent.
"Er excuse me Mr er.. sir. Could you sort of stop... I mean not play that thing while we're doing our act...?"
"Why?" No turn of head or visible signs of slowing down, never mind stopping.
"Because we can't be heard. That thing is rather loud."
Might as well have complained there were no condom machines in the Sistine Chapel.
"Well, tell your friends to turn your volume UP." Quite simply the man was a genius. There was no further mileage in the discussion. Fact was we couldn't turn anything up but he had penetrated our argument thoroughly and disabled it. Broadly speaking he had robbed it of the will to live.
But I digress. The little kiddies played and with the aid of a zillion watt PA they sounded much better than they had in rehearsal. Solid drummer: always helps. Lemmy approved. Nice. The singer was suitably inaudible but the dog collar looked fantastic.
My public debut was playing country and western in a small Conservative Club in north Cumberland. Bit different.
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Update: I've just come second out of 141,000 for 'intelligent design' on Google Blog Search. Less than an hour after posting. Wow. Are things going to be that fast now?
Well hello again and a Happy New Year to all my un-numbered readers.
A compressed report of the festives follows.
We had a truly non-partisan Christmas Day, starting with a New Labour morning featuring champagne and Marks and Spencer's truffles, balanced by a small, prudent bit of wealth redistribution from the richest in our family to some of the poorest. I think I got it about right and it seemed very popular. I may well be in office next Christmas too. My attempts to promote education were less well received though, and perhaps I will give less books next year, if re-elected.
The highlight was our Tory Xmas dinner. With Brussels but not run by Brussels.
We then drifted into a Lib Dem afternoon of not knowing quite what to do.
On the subject of whom I think the perfect solution all round is for Graeme Souness to take over the vacant Lib Dem leadership and Charles Kennedy to be given immediate charge at St James's Park. Souey would get the blood pumping in Lib Dem veins. I can see it now, his bulging eyes and phlegm flecked lips. "Get INTAE them. Anyone who pulls out of any 50-50s has NO place in MY team." Meanwhile who better than an ex-boozer to sort out the problems at one of the Premiership's drinkiest dressing rooms.
Two nights ago we finally ran out of food. No more turkey and all the chocolates were, at last, gone. All that seemed to be left was a packet of polenta and a tin of sardines. Something very similar probably happened on Noah's Ark after three months or so. Mel knocked up a version of a quiche, with polenta instead of pastry, and sardines instead of anything nice.
"Would you like to look at it before I put it in the oven?" she asked politely.
"Only if I don’t have to look at it again when it comes out," I replied, with perhaps a tad too much honesty.
The meal passed slowly, and in silence.
We made a brief trip north at New Year to visit Mel's parents who have been sitting in a Noah's Ark of their own for the last nine years since my father-in-law had a serious stroke. He wasn’t well. As in bed ridden, bad tempered and bonkers. Jake was quite upset by all the shouting.
Once safely back in the calmer waters of Peckham I explained to him that Grandpa really wasn’t well any more and that he was tired, frightened and confused.
"It’s a problem because he doesn’t really want to go on with his life as it is, but he can’t change it," I explained. "Mostly he just wants to die by now."
Jake looked at me with eyes full of the unbearable sweetness and vulnerability that children can distill and project in quiet moments of unexpected tenderness.
"Oh, I know," he said reverently. "Like Padme in Episode Three of Star Wars."
"Yes," I replied, and for once that was enough.